Blosser's Top Eleven Local Restaurants:

1.    Tia's Asian Restaurant (Thai and Laotian cuisine) Location: Hickory.  Tia, the Laotian proprietor and chief cook of this establishment, serves what is in our opinion quite simply the best Thai and Lao-Thai cuisine available on the continent.  You'll find nothing better in New York, Washington, Chicago, or Los Angeles.  Guaranteed.  The accommodations and prices are modest, but the food is out of this world.  Try it.  You'll like it.  (Make sure you consult the scale before ordering food "hot," or "very hot."  Tia means what she says.  Start with the mild end, even if you like it hot.)

2.    Davinci's Ristorante Italiano e Pizzeria (Italian cuisine) Location: Hickory.  Located in the Belle Hollow Shopping Center at the intersection of 127-N. and 29th Ave. NE in Hickory, this is simply the most elegant, tasteful, and delicious Italian dining you will find in Hickory.  The staff are knowledgeable and courteous, and the selection ample.  Satisfaction guaranteed. 

3.    The Tudor House Restaurant (Charming Old English Restaurant) Location: Newton.  If you think the English can't produce cuisine to rival the Continent, you simply must to try this place.  Their full menu starts with a wide assortment of appetizers, runs the gambit of entrees from exquisite beef and game dishes to mouth-watering seafood, and concludes with a variety of delectable desserts.  And we haven't even begun talking about atmosphere.  The place is exquisite, with rustic beams, open hearths, ample patio, and a charming Inglenook.  In the center of the establishment, of course, is a luxuriously appointed full bar and lounge.

4.    Yiannis Restaurant (Greek cuisine) Location: Morganton.  Looking for authentic Greek food?  You'll find what you're looking for in Morganton.  Yiannis also serves ordinary American shirt-sleeve fare, but the establishment's pride and joy and raison d'être is their delectable selection of authentic Greek standards, including a fine Moussaka.

5.    Sakura Japanese Restaurant (Japanese sushi & cuisine) Location: Gastonia.  It's hard finding authentic Japanese cuisine around here.  There are countless Japanese restaurants of the ersatz variety (see my link on Fake Japanese Food), and establishments that serve what the call "sushi" but bears only a distant resemblance to the original.  The best Japanese cuisine that I've found in a 40-mile radius of Hickory is the Sakura, in Gastonia.  Their sushi is excellent; and they even have things like shumai (a delicious steamed crab dumpling) that I haven't seen anywhere else around these parts.  Some of their offerings are unique adaptations of their own, but they are generally of high quality and tasteful.

6.    Cuisine Malaya (Malaysian cuisine) Location: Charlotte.  If you like the spices of India, Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese cuisine, imagine combining these into an exciting, exotic cuisine of its own.  Something like that is what you'll find in Cuisine Malaya, one of our all-time favorite restaurants in Charlotte.  Like Malaysian cuisine in general, the offering of Cuisine Malaya are delightfully eclectic. They even has a very respectable sushi bar.  The staff is extraordinarily courteous and helpful and friendly.

7.    Monticello Restaurant (fine Continental-style cuisine) Location: Charlotte.  Awarded Best Hot Food at the annual “Taste of the Nation,” and Awarded Best Hotel Restaurant, Charlotte's Best Magazine and Charlotte Magazine, Monticello Restaurant offers fine dining at its best in Charlotte.  The Italian pasta dishes are among the best we've ever had.  NB: unless you are prepared to pay five star prices, go for lunch.

8.    Zambra (Spanish tapas bar and restaurant) Location: Asheville.  Offering creative Gypsy cuisine, this colorful, cavernous restaurant has keyhole-shaped doorways and plush banquettes stacked with pillows. Among 18 tapas on a recent menu was an artichoke stuffed with pistachio and eggplant caviar. A meal for two with wine is about $85. Evenings only, Tuesday through Saturday.

9.    Carrabbas Italian Grille (Our favorite Italian chain restaurant): Location: now in Hickory.  A restaurant chain begun by two Italian Americans, Damian Mandola and Johnny Carrabba, who love nothing more than sitting down to an Italian dinner, and who toured Italy in search of recipes to recreate the tastes and aromas they remembered from their childhood.

10. Asia Express (Our favorite Chinese fast food restaurant): Location: 310 Hwy 70 SW Hickory,  NC  28602 (Tel. 828-324-5481).  Normally, we don't care for the "Fake Japanese Food" variety of Asian fast-food, but this is quite different.  For one thing, Charlie, the cook, is a top-of-the-line genuine Chinese chef who makes everything fresh and knows what he's doing: this isn't fake Japanese food, but good shirt-sleeve Chinese eatin'.  For another thing, the price is right.  In fact, this may be the best deal in town, provided you like Chinese food.  If you like hot and sour soup, you won't find a better variety anywhere, period; and the price is 99 CENTS for an ample cup of the hot ambrosia.  Their regular entrees are hard to beat too.  Try their Hunan Chicken, at $2.99 for more than you could possibly want.  I'm not kidding about the prices; nor am I kidding about the quality.  They do throw in a plastic container of "shrimp sauce" for the ignoramuses who've come to expect it, but only as a courtesy to idiots who insist on ruining a good thing.  Finally, the woman who takes your order is Charlie's wonderful Vietnamese wife who will treat you like royalty and call you "hun."  Leave a generous tip in the tip jar.  Eat in or take out.  You'll love it!

11. Sims Country Bar-B-Que (Our obligatory favorite NC barbecue restaurant).  Location: Granite Falls.  Sims Counrty Bar-B-Que advertises itself as being "centrally located in the middle of nowhere‚" so before trying to find your way there without knowing exactly where you are going‚ get good directions. This place is part restaurant‚ part parks‚ part music stage‚ and part dance center. The main dish at Sims Counrty Bar-B-Que‚ as you might guess‚ is barbecue. The image of a family operation and a family-oriented spot to enjoy good food accompanied by traditional music and dance is exactly the picture owner Keith Sims strives to portray. Once you have loaded your tray with an enormous plate of food and a cup of iced tea or lemonade‚ select a table close to the dance floor and settle in. You will enjoy an evening of eating more barbecue than you should‚ drinking lots of iced tea‚ meeting and socializing with nice people‚ listening to hours of finely-played bluegrass and old-time music‚ and watching -- and participating in -- lively mountain dancing.